


if only i could stay, if only i could stay for you, i would

by midnightchapters



Series: those summer nights seem long ago [1]
Category: SK8 the Infinity (Anime)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Character Study, Childhood Friends, Crushes, F/F, F/M, Falling In Love, First Kiss, Friends to Lovers, Grief/Mourning, Growing Up, Growing Up Together, Leaving Home, SAPPHICS!! COME GET YOUR JUICE, getting married
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-27
Updated: 2021-02-27
Packaged: 2021-03-16 18:46:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,409
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29704947
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/midnightchapters/pseuds/midnightchapters
Summary: The poets would say that Nanako and Seiren are the epitome of soulmates. Hearts bound, lives interlaced, only each others.But they are no poets, and so they say they are only girls with too much flowers in their lungs, and gardens in their heads.
Relationships: Hasegawa Langa's Mother/Hasegawa Langa's Father, Hasegawa Langa's Mother/Original Female Character(s), Nanako/Oliver, Nanako/Seiren
Series: those summer nights seem long ago [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2185101
Kudos: 10





	if only i could stay, if only i could stay for you, i would

**Author's Note:**

> nobody:  
> me: gives a character who was there for 5 secs max a backstory and depth and a gf
> 
> but besties please give this a chance! :)

The first time Nanako meets her, she is flying.

She is flying, swinging, looking up at the sky and closing her eyes as she hears the wind blow. 

She is feeling the clouds and the sky and galaxy. She is feeling everything. She is reaching and reaching and reaching. 

And then _she_ comes. 

Nanako hears the sound of twigs snapping under feet, and of muffled annoyance and then finally reaching the destination. 

And Nanako can't stop. Can't resist to make friends. She's so lonely. "Hi, I'm Nanako! What's your name?"

The girl swinging besides her pauses at the question and Kayo thinks _Huh. You might be like me_ before she answers. "I'm Seiren." her voice is fast, the words are clipped but Nanako knows she doesn't mean it that way. It's the way she is. And a defense mechanism which Nanako understands.

"I'm Nanako," she says again, smiling with her eyes still closed. "Your name is pretty."

"I know," she bites out, "You told me already, just now." And then she quietens, adds more gently, "Thank you. Yours is too."

Nanako's eyes open at that, tilting her head to the side as she looks at Seiren. "You really think so?" She asks quietly. "Everyone's said it's boring."

"They're boring," she scoffs, "but yeah, I really know so."

Nanako smiles, and so Seiren does too. It's a slow, and small thing but Nanako promises herself that she's going to teach her how to and make her smile. 

"Are we friends?"

"Yeah! If you want to be."

"Seiren, since you walked here I've been calling you friend this whole time!"

"Oh," she lets out, surprised, "that's-" but she gives up on her words and smiles instead. 

Nanako makes another promise to herself: She is going to show and give all the kindness in the world to her Seiren.

They come back to the park, sneaking out of their houses, escaping their parents before the day breaks. They watch the sun rise, and just like that somehow they make a handshake. 

It doesn't happen on purpose. It's a mistake, but they own and make up to it anyway. 

Nanako was reaching out for a handshake and Seiren a high fave. They retract their hands, and then reach out again but this time—

This time, they do it. 

This time, Nanako reaches out and Seiren reaches out and they make a handshake that is theirs only.

A hand outstretched, the others a high five but managing to catch it. Pull back, come back in, slide, and knuckles meet. 

It's a seal of what is and will be.

They meet and meet and meet. Again and again and again. 

(Until they become rose-cheek girls.)

They grow. 

Somehow, they do it.

Seiren is not supposed to here, laying on grass with Nanako at the park they met at two years ago because her mother doesn't like Nanako. (Which is ridiculous. How can anyone dislike or hate Nanako? As soft and sweet as she is. 

That's what her mother dislikes about her. But as if Seiren would stay away and pay the words mind.)

Nanako speaks too quietly, and looks up to the sky as if she sees something nobody else does. She is so foolish, Seiren has to stay with her and protect her because nobody else will. She has to stay with her and make sure she doesn't sprawl into the concrete of the street and get hurt. 

She is seeing things up in the clouds now, and Seiren is laying on the grass next to her. 

"Seiren," her voice breaks the silence they've drifted into, "what's wrong?"

Butteflies swoop in her stomach and she glares at it. Nanako's voice is lilting. "You're going to get dirty and you hate being dirty. I know that."

"Not if I'm watching the clouds or with flowers," she replies, "Now, come on, join me. We can watch the sky together and make pictures out of the clouds and name them." 

"I am watching you."

Nanako laughs. "Why? Because you don't want to get dirty?" 

"Because," Seiren sharply answers, "you don't get hurt."

"I don't get hurt in the grass? Are you hearing yourself right now, Seiren? You sound stupid." Nanako looks at her with an amused smile. "Lay down with me." 

Scowling, Seiren lays down on the grass and moves closer to Nanako. If she notices it, she doesn't mention it. Nanako shifts over further that their shoulders touch and fingers could hold each other.

(They're eight now, and six when they became friends.)

Nanako reaches up and brushes the grass out of Seiren's hair. And, despite herself, she blushes pink. 

"I am _not_ stupid," she glowers, "If anyone is, it's you." 

Nanako laughs, her shoulders shaking, and holds Seiren's hand. 

Nanako is too gentle. Too warm. If it weren't for Seiren, she'd be bullied by all the other kids in their class right now as she doesn't fight back. Seiren knows that Nanako can fight back, she just chooses not to and to be seen as defenseless when she is _not_. So, Seiren comes in and yells at everyone and then—

"We should get married," Nanako breaks the silence, letting go of Seiren's hand (she misses the wamth) and propping herself on her elbows.

"What?" Seiren says, dumbly.

"Married," Nanako says, excited and smiling with pure joy. "We'll be together forever."

"Married." Seiren repeats, then meeting Nanako's eyes, she feels her lips forming a beam. "Yeah."

"We'll be together forever."

"You promise?"

"I promise."

Seiren presses a kiss to Nanako's cheek clumsily. And when she sees Kayo's smile, it's all worth it. It always is.

Nanako is too gentle. Too warm. Too soft. But Seiren wouldn't want her or prefer her any other way. 

They get married at recess, in a place close to the park where it's quiet and peaceful. Private. 

Nanako curls their hands together and takes her to the playgroud, and Seiren presents two mood rings to Nanako bashfully. It's from the dollar store near their house, and cheap but Nanako would'nt have it any other way. She loves it, and she holds it in her hands like it's the most valuable thing in the world. 

Nanako slides the ring on Seiren's finger and while she doesn't make a speech or get down on her knee or kiss Seiren but. She promises her that when they're older and still together (because they'll always be together) they'll get married properly. Have a proper wedding and will be together forever. 

She doesn't say that she loves Seiren, but Seiren can read between the lines. 

And they wear their rings everywhere and all the time.

Butterlflies flutter around Nanako and she is so beautiful that Seiren's breath is taken away. 

The poets would say that Nanako and Seiren are the epitome of soulmates. Hearts bound, lives interlaced, only each others. 

But they are no poets, and so they say they are only girls with too much flowers in their lungs, and gardens in their heads. 

Nanako's parents weren't one for her, and so she wasn't either.

(She makes a promise to herself like she did to make Seiren smile and show her kindness. 

She makes herself a promise that if she has children, she will treat them as they are hers because they _are_. And she will treat them like her parents didn't, and love them for all of her life until she has no more life to breathe.)

But even if they weren't for her, and she wasn't them, they still had knowledge to give her. 

The only time she can remember her father being distinctly nice to her is when she was a child and not exposed to what is the world. 

He taught her the most important lesson and imparts his knowledge to her now, when she is seventeen. 

"Everything has a meaning, Nanako. Remember that." It's a lesson and example. "You make it yours. You rule over it," he told her when she was still considered as his daughter, when he was not apathetic and when she couldn't reach the countertops of the shop's greenhouse. (He used to smile at her. He doesn't anymore.) He placed a stem of a clematis in her waiting hand and curled his fingers in hers for an affectionate squeeze (when he used to be her father, when she used to be his daughter—) before letting go quickly. She unfurled her fingers, eyeing and seeing each bud of white with purple streaks that will be there later and then—

She smiles, slow and high. She realises, and it sparks inside of her - warm. 

Clever. Intellectual. 

It became a game after that until she grew up and until he left her in a way. 

And then Seiren and Nanako are in a garden, not far from the park they met at. Nanako points out and names all the flowers she sees that she knows, and Seiren's following after her. Is she showing off? Yes, but it's something that hers and Seiren should be there to watch and see. 

(Seiren is gazing at her with eyes full of love, and a smile so soft that Icarus burns before he gets close to the sun.)

Sieren's eyes linger on Nanako, and her hair slips onto her face until all of her hair comes lose. Without pausing, because Nanako knows and Nanako always will when it comes to her, tucks a lock of hair behind Seiren's ear and taps her cheek once, twice, three times. 

Seiren presses a kiss on her fingers before Nanako withdraws them. 

"Come, Seiren," Nanako tugs her and she follows her along like she always would. Always does. She would walk till where earth meets its end and even then, beyond it. "There's a lot more by the field." 

And every flower she comes upon, she asks Nanako, for her to tell Seiren, for her to know. For her to see Nanako in her element, gleaming and lit up. 

“What about these?” Seiren presses herself up against Nanako’s side, pointing to the gladiolis.

Nanako laughs, tipping her finger against the blooms and tracing it gently. “They mean 'give me a break' or 'flower of the gladiators'.”

She feels Seiren’s quiet laugh reverberate against and through her ribs, a brand— the echo of it flits along through Nanako’s chest as the butterflies that swirled around her one summer. “Why?”

“They're loud like that. Demanding. And the _flower of the gladiators_ is obvious. Catches everyones attention, y'know?”

Seiren hums, she believes it. And Nanako. Nanako is-

“And those?”

Nanako looks at the red salvias and gardenias that Seiren is pointing to, and the flowers seem to watch her back.

Information is language, cadence, and currency all in one. Once you notice and recognise the patterns that makes it up, it’s easy to speak without saying anything. As far back and long as Nanako can remember, she’s been aware of how much power there is in _knowing—_ when to play her cards, when to show her hand. It's all an artform like flowers are. You just have to uncover it, and master it and then you're set for life. People assume that Nanako isn’t aware of its weight, and assume that she doesn’t know anything. But there’s power in that, too.

Nanako doesn’t lie but she doesn’t say it either. She picks the flowers and places it behind Seiren’s ear and one in her hair with a touch that lingers, brushing against her face.

Forever mine. Secret love. 

“It looks good on you,” is all what she says, and that is enough.

Seiren gazes up at her with her eyelashes fluttering against her skin, tainted pink as Nanako’s finger ghosts the shell of her ear, creeping outward and outward until she says her name. Nanako’s hand hovers and rests in the air and space between them, taking it in, feeling the sense of _knowing_.

"Tell me," Nanako says, "What do you want to know?" 

(They have grown, just as the petals do with time. 

They are seventeen now, almost eighteen.) 

"If I do this," Seiren says, finger reaching out between them and trailing along Nanako's face. It's Nanako's time to say her name. "What would you say?"

"I'd say yes," she lets out, ragged, "I'd say yes."

"Then tell me," she retracts her finger, "What did those flowers mean that you don't want to share with me?" As Nanako remains quiet, she smirks, vicious but soft. Like flowers in armour are. "Time's ticking."

"The red salvias mean forever mine and the gardenias are secret love," she tells Seiren. "Now, please."

Seiren draws out time. The nods. "Forever mine, that's right." And Nanako waits waits waits. 

Seiren cups Nanako's cheek and tilts her head up. And then she presses her lips to Nanako's and Nanako holds. There's the aftertaste of honey in her mouth and so, that is all Nanako tastes. 

After that's done, Seiren asks her if she wants to go back home. 

They don't. They never do (because they're each others homes. Not the one that's made and built and constructed. Theirs isn't). 

_What are we?_

I am yours. You are mine. 

That's what we are, my love.

They don't say _I love you_. They read the lines and know. 

It's there in everyday motion. 

Nanako begins with Seiren. She ends with Seiren.

_Tell me, who hangs the stars in the sky?_

_My love, you do. Don't you know._

("I'm going to marry you one day." Nanako states, looking at the sunset.

"Nanako," Seiren says, not drawn our or a statement. A name. But that says everything it needs to.

"I will." 

"Fine," Seiren sighs, "I'll be waiting." 

They sink into glittering moonlit yearn and ache.)

They are the type of girls the world doesn't pay attention to as a whole, but as a smaller quantity they do. 

They are the girls who sprout lilacs, trace flowers on bare skin, soft touches, honey words, and starry lips.

They are all of those things.

But they are not ended as they are soft.

They are not harsh as they are fierce.

They are in love and will be forever.

Dawn breaks. 

The time comes. 

Their story ends.

(She should've known things wouldn't last.) 

Nanako is six when she sees her for the first time. She's nineteen when she sees her for the last time.

It starts out as touch. In their house, they believe in touch. 

They're drowning and drowning and drowning into the depths. They always will. 

"Tell me a story," Nanako says, weary.

And as if Seiren knows - she does, she always does - she does so with no questions asked. She knows, she knows she kno _—_

She does. Tells her the fantasies, broken heroes and full monsters, kids running after kids, the moon and the stars and where the sun comes between. Everything. Nanako said it once. Seiren spills twice, and isn't the art of letting go beautiful?

"When?"

"Soon."

Seiren coaxes a tear out of her, and although Nanako's not left yet she feels so hollow. As if she's lost her heart, which she did and does and is going to do. She kisses it out of her as tears sting and threaten to tip out of her eyes. 

"I'm sorry," her voice cracks into splintered glass that they both swallow and choke on. What is a physical pain compared to this? "I'm sorry."

"Shh, baby. You don't want to and din't want to. It's not on you. It's not your fault." 

Catharsis is wild, and merciless but free. 

Nanako tries to swallow her sobs but to no avail. 

Seiren shifts Nanako onto her lap, resting her forehead on Nanako's and breathes. Nanako matches the rhythm. 

"I miss you," Seiren whispers, "I miss you." Her voice dies down, and Nanako's tears come streaming down.

Nanako kisses her desperately and it tastes of her tears but it's Nanako's and so, she latches on like a dying man. 

"Tell me, were we destined to burn before we even blazed?" 

"Tell me, do you ever see me and think that you and I belong to each other?"

Nanako holds, and Seiren _holds on_. That's all she can do, because Nanako's bound to leave either way. 

"If you meet someone else," Seiren begins, "I won't _—_ "

"— Stop."

" _—_ hold it against you. I won't mind."

They're both sobbing by now, rivers spilling, smiles nostalgic already but not heartbreak. 

Nanako holds Seiren's face in her hands and looks in her eyes. "I won't find anyone else and love them, Seiren. I'll love you only."

"Nanako," she says and Nanako pauses, finding it hard to keep her eyes open as Seiren taps her cheek. "Nanako, you will. I know how much we want to believe and stay but please, don't stop yourself just for me."

"I won't love anyone like I love you," Nanako says.

Seiren smiles, cracked at corners and wisps of bitter edges. "Good," she breathes, "Leave that for me."

Nanako laughs but sobs.

"I will. _I will_." She promises. 

"I'll wait," Seiren says, suddenly.

" _Don't_ ," Nanako answers with shards of flint. "Don't. If you tell me to then you have to do the same."

"My love," she replies, voice sad and resigned but not out of love, "We'll be together forever. I'll carry the world while you walk on it. And I'll wait for you however long it takes. I do everything for you."

Nanako presses her fingers to Seiren's lips, in effort to stop her talking but it doesn't. She continues on, "Besides, I'm sure you can find love. I can't. You were my beginning and now my ending." 

"I love you," Nanako says, aching and wanting and mourning for what was and isn't anymore.

"I love you too," Seiren arches up and catches her in a kiss, again and again and again. But, "Stay." 

She doesn't mean it in a literal sense. Seiren knows, and accepts it even if she _doesn't want to_.

"Come back. I'll come back, one day. I promise."

"I'll be waiting."

And when Nanako walks out of the door, for the last time in however long it may be, Seiren truly feels knives killing her.

After she knows, after she knows, after she knows, Nanako leaves. Her heart's ripped along. 

From her parents she came, to them she returns. 

In the beginning, her life would be consumed by Seiren. 

It still is, but a man enters the flower-shop they run and introduces himself to Nanako. He says his name is Oliver and she would be lying if she said she wasn't charmed. 

But that will be later, and later means when she's gotten used to being so far from Seiren and not having her anymore. 

She is mourning Seiren now, but later.

Later. 

He comes up to her, ordering flowers and talking to her with a blush. After a few visits and he's gotten comfortable with time, when he gets the flowers, he gives it to her. 

At first, Nanako hesitates but she remembers Seiren and what she said and how they'll be each others one day so she agrees to go on a date with him. 

She finds herself enjoying it which she didn't think she was capable of doing because Seiren— 

_Seiren is not here. Seiren is gone. She told you._

Nanako goes on dates, and days turn into weeks and months and then years. He is everything she knows now.

(But when it comes to Seiren— Seiren is first. 

They 'll be together forever. The beginning and ending. Won't love anyone like she does her. Waiting and waiting. Waiting waiting waiting. They both are.) 

Oliver knows, and he doesn't mind. He kisses Nanako and tells her _it's okay_ with a sad but understanding smile. 

She knows that's when she falls in love with him.

_Was it tragedy in the heartlines? Was it tragedy in the stars? Or was it neither: just tragedy, the beginning and where everything stemmed from._

Nanako is sleeping next to her husband (and isn't that something she never saw. It's Seiren. It's always her) and she dreams. 

She imagines. 

She wonders.

She raises her fingers to her lips, and tries to remember what Seiren's kiss felt like. But she knows it was freedom.

Nanako dreams of Seiren that night. She dreams of Seiren being with them and them all being in love and a happy family but not in this story.

They couldn't have that story. 

_Do you picture me when you see them? Do you dream of me?_

I do. I do, I do, _I do_.

Nanako remembers. 

She seems to be doing that a lot these days. Her husband leaves her alone for most part, and brings her whatever she asks for. 

She's pregnant now. Expecting a baby. And she can't but imagine Seiren being here with them. Being here here here. 

(Seiren is not here though. She is not.)

Nanako remembers girls who used to frolic in grass, playing tag and honey dripping from fingers, and sucking lollipops and who wished to grow up.

(They've grown up now? Where do they go on from here?)

Remembers times in which giving gummies were love confessions and so, she made sure to give Seiren many just to see her smile. 

She's fulfilled the promise she made to herself years ago; when she first met Seiren.

But to think of it, she hasn't at all.

_I'll be waiting._

_I'll be waiting for you too, my love._

Nanako loves her husband. She loves Oliver so much—

(But Seiren is—)

Langa is born in a blizzard at 5:27 am and Nanako is exhausted and wants to sleep but not without-

She tells him fiercely - a boy, her boy, her child, Langa - _I am going to protect and love you with every inch of my life._ And then quietly adds, _I wish Seiren were here. Holding you with me. Us being together. Being a happy family._

Langa grows up with stories of Aunt Seiren and he knows his Mama loves her and still does. His dad knows and doesn't refuse it, doesn't disapprove of it, doesn't do anything but look at him with a melancholic smile when Langa approaches and asks him. 

He just tells him, _People fall in love in ways we can't know or understand it, Langa. It never has a chance to break._ His dad raises him and throws him into the air after that, catching him. Always catching him. 

When Langa meets her, he'll call Aunt Seiren Mom because if his Mama loves her then she is his Mom. He keeps that in his heart.

Oliver dies. Oliver dies and Nanako is so cold in ways Canada cannot be. 

She packs their bags and goes back home. Moves back to her roots with Langa - her son, her child, why did he have to deal with his father dying? - and he sees Okinawa in its glory.

She takes her son to the park she spent her life growing at with Seiren. Takes him to the meadow, takes him to the field - he picks flowers and places it in her hair. 

It gives Nanako warmth. She just wishes it were under better circumstances that she brings Langa to Japan. 

Nanako feels empty, but she is not because she has Langa and that's all she needs. Who she needs. 

(But a traitorous part of her mind says: But it isn't. Aren't you waiting and wondering where Seiren is? What she promised you all those years ago?)

She is empty, but she is not hollow. 

Nanako knows before she sees. Nanako knows it in life, in death, in dusk. 

It's Seiren. It has been, always. 

She shows up at Nanako's door, and her heart knows. It knows. 

(She would recognise her always. Would recognise her in stars, in moon, in sun.)

They don't cry. Nanako invites her in, and Seiren does. Everything feels much different than they could even expect, but they'll manage it like they always do.

"I heard you came back," Seiren says, "I had to see for myself."

Nanako smiles, wistful. "I did." Then, "My husband died." 

They've changed, but they haven't at all.

"Oh," Seiren's eyes wide. She's silent but she gestures Nanako to lay on her like she did years ago. So, Nanako does. And it's a semblance of normal when life and time used to be gentle.

Nanako rests her head on Seiren’s legs. She curls into her lap, and sees herself as a child - before she was a mother.

(And she may as well be, she thinks. If a woman is either child or mother, one is a title she can't claim anymore.)

She submerges into Seiren’s lap, and she knows before Nanako can even open her mouth to ask. She tells Nanako stories. She likes the fantasies, gold heroes and looming monsters, who hurt and harm and betray and that wickedness is something that is in their blood and theirs. Because if it's in their blood, no one needs to spend hours alone, thinking about why they hurt, harmed, betrayed and the wickedness, and how could she have stopped it—

Seiren tells her the ones that are about love too.

Recounts the blazing woman, the gleaming woman and the little people in between. She tells Nanako about seeing two people be so in love when she went grocery shopping this morning that she couldn't look anywhere else. 

It feels like fantasy, but Nanako knows it isn't. 

Seiren being here, herself, feels like a fantasy. 

Does the world keep moving without her in it?

(No. No, it does not.)

"I'll wait for however long you need and want me to," Seiren says, before the words escape Nanako's mouth.

She kisses Seiren in thanks like she used to do all those years ago when she didn't know how to express herself in anything else than that. 

Somehow, against all odds, they'll be okay. 

Nanako is six when she sees Seiren for the first time. 

She is nineteen when she thinks she sees Seiren for the last time. 

She is fourty when she sees Seiren again. 

(Nanako keeps her promise. She keeps all of them.)

Seiren waits for her. Waiting, waiting, waiting. Never rushing, always flowing.

She's done a lot of waiting. What's a bit more?

They have their beginning and ending.

Nanako is six when she falls in love with her best friend. 

Seiren is fourty-one when she marries her wife. 

They have their forever. 

**Author's Note:**

> god, i love nanako and seiren  
> i grew so attached to them. i think this has to be one of my fav fics
> 
> edit: i thought they didnt have names so i gave them my own names and i like those ones better but. guess i've got to make do with this. their previous names were Kayo and Arlo for langa's parents and i gave everyone names 
> 
> \- this will be a series! just one fic after this about them that will be an AU and then we're done
> 
> enjoy your day! please leave and give me validation it would mean the world to me !!


End file.
